This invention relates to an attachment system or process for mounting flexible, easily replaceable advertising displays on to the side of a vehicle, such as a truck, tractor trailer, or van or fixed billboards or signs of various sizes.
There have been developed a number of methods for displaying advertising signage on the side of moving vehicles. Given the increased mobility of the public, and the growing unsatisfied demand for fixed roadside signage, the mobile billboard, achieved by mounting advertising art to the side of a transport vehicle, is becoming ever more common, and ever more practical, given advances in the technology of printing such advertising art, allowing better color quality, as well as much greater pixel resolutions. Taken together, these factors now make mobile, lateral surface of transport vehicle, advertising a higher quality and more sought after mode of commercial publicity than ever before. With the development of the science of mobile commercial publicity production, one would expect a corresponding development and sophistication in the technology of mounting said media to their substrate, the lateral sides of transport vehicles. This invention is a new step in said development and sophistication.
There are a number of constraining factors in designing a mobile advertising mounting system, some regulatory, others aesthetic, some physical. First, there exist federal as well as state transportation regulations restricting the width of transport vehicles to an upper limit of 102 inches. Secondly, transport advertising is most often procured by leasing the use of a carrier's fleet for such purpose. The fleet owner is inclined to lease to the advertising broker whose system impacts the lest on the fleet's vehicles, in terms of time required for initial setup of the system, turnaround time for installation/replacement of a particular image, and complexity of the permanent hardware attached to the vehicle. Further, in order to maintain the planar aspect of the sign, which is critical to readability from afar, the current industry practice is to apply tension to the signage. Finally, such signs need to present a minimal profile to avoid damage from abrasion or to enhance he safety of the design.
This has been accomplished in a vareity of ways, such as the systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,239,765 and 5,507,109. The first of these two systems relies on a series of anchors placed along the top and bottom of the lateral sides of the vehicle. A flat rectangular rod has the edges of the signage wrapped around it on the top and bottom edges of the sign, and this wrapping is held by the rows of anchors. The series of anchors method presents obvious difficulties as far as bringing the individual anchors within the top or bottom row into perfect linear alignment, and there are also issues of significant protrusion from the side of the vehicle, using this system, which may violate state and federal regulatory restrictions.
Additionally, this system of U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,765 has no mechanism to prevent the signage material acting as an airfoil, billowing and tending to pull away from the vehicle, or, at the very least, assuming a convex shape, thus distorting the image. This system further has no vertical or lateral adjustability to account for variation in manufacture of the signage material or system installation.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,109 solves some of the problems with the system described in the earlier patent, yet it discloses a system that is visually asymmetric as well as possessing a mech larger footprint. This implementation also requires attaching a structural element to the signage using a rod in a pocket of the sign on the leading and top edges. Holes are ringed by grommets on reinforced flaps which must be sewn to the trailing and bottom edges of the sign thus decreasing the available area of the sign that can be used for displaying the image. Shock cords are attached to the grommets and the shock cords are attached to the truck wall by means of S hooks connected to either flanges which run along the bottom and top edges of the sides of most trailers or by holes drilled in the sides of the trailer.
What is desired is a visually symmetric, simple, durable sign comprised of a small number of parts, and specially engineered to impact the truck or trailer at a minimum in terms of fasteners per foot required to the truck or trailer siding, as well as insulating the truck or trailer interior from moisture, system of attaching signage to a transport vehicle. Such a system should keep the signage material as planar as possible, and not introduce a vacuum or partial vacuum underneath it, or cause air pockets to form underneath it either, at any point along the sign. Such a system would have its framing removable, and insure protrusion from the lateral surface of the vehicle low enough to comply with all regulatory maximum vehicle width specifications. Once the framing is removed, the visible resident should be at an absolute minimum, and the framing should be capable of replacement and removal at will, and in a short, less than half-hour, time frame. The system would also allow for insertion of the line by which the edges of the sign are anchored to the substrate to be flexible, allowing for pre-insertion at the time of manufacture, and easy transportation. The system would further include a positive locking mechanism which does not release even if the sign is torn. The locking mechanism should present a smooth exterior surface with no exposed fastening device to be more resistant to scraping. The attachment bead should be protected behind the exterior surface. The exterior sign should project no more than 1/4 inch to avoid any problems with excess width.
The present invention meets these needs.